As my final piece for the Altered States Project I decided to create a short film that encompasses all the themes of Altered States that I have explored over this project. Taking inspiration from films I have researched allowed me to come up with some sticking concepts and ideas. I wanted this film to be different to my previous films in the way that it used a substantial amount of visual effects; which is a course I am looking into for university level.
I stitched all of my footage together in Premiere Pro which I managed to record with the help of my classmate Zoe. For the title card I wanted the contrast between black and white to foreshadow the ending of the film. I animated the title using keyframes on ease out and ease in. The title 'Reflections' not only has a prominent theme throughout the film but it is meant to reference the titles used by sequels of The Matrix.
For the shot In which my alter ego punches me through reality, I had to layer several visual effects assets, time them correctly with the footage and adjust their colour grading so it looked as if they were apart of the scene. Where my body fades into the background I had to create an ellipse mask and place a clean plate behind it which I then blurred with a feather and the turbulent displace effect.
Making shots with two of me in it proved to be quite a challenge as I needed the camera perfectly still and for me to not move in the way of the feathered edge between the two different shots.
For the scene where I attack my alter ego I used a glitch effect in conjunction with the wave warp effect to create the allusion of the code of reality breaking down.
To make sure that all of my visual effects ran smoothly for the final export I did multiple in out renders after I had added each asset.
To make the inverted black and white effect for the final shots I used an adjustment layer and changed the levels with the invert blend mode.
I am very pleased with how this film came out, considering it was my first time using VFX. Now that I have experimented with VFX I can continue to improve my skills and make them look even more realistic.
Visual Effects assets provided by https://www.productioncrate.com
Comments